Jerry Falwell has expressed deep concern that a children's TV
character named Tinky-Winky on the popular show, Teletubbies, is
homosexual. The evidence is quite convincing to Falwell, who lays
out his case in the February edition of the National Liberty
Journal. Tinky-Winky has the voice of a boy but he carries a
purse. Further, according to Falwell, "He is purple -- the
gay-pride color; and his antenna is shaped like a triangle -- the
gay-pride symbol."

It's been a long time since a prominent real American has
denounced a television character, so there's certainly reason to
have a little fun with this. And at least when Dan Quayle went
after Murphy Brown, the discussion could sound serious. This time
around, it's tough to get too high-minded when you're castigating
someone named Tinky-Winky, and explications are coming from a
production company called Itsy Bitsy Entertainment.

But there are two reasons to take this story very seriously.

First, it gives the lie to one of the religious right's most
frequent arguments about why they are not being mean-spirited and
bigoted about homosexuality?hating the sin, but loving the sinner.
This argument is often stated another way. The objection to
homosexuality, it is claimed, does not have to do with sexual
orientation, but with sexual conduct.

Lesbians and gay men have long known that was simply
disingenuous, and Falwell now shows that it is. I doubt that, even
taking his fevered imaginings to their most absurd lengths, Falwell
believes Tinky-Winky was having sex with anyone. In short, this
case is not about Tinky-Winky's sexual conduct, it is about
Tinky-Winky's sexual orientation. Falwell's condemnation of
Tinky-Winky is based only on factors he believes suggest
Tinky-Winky could be identified publicly as gay --use of a color
associated with gay rights, the triangle that gays adopted from
their Nazi persecutors, and use of a "purse" by a "boy," neither of
which can reliably be determined in the fanciful world of the
Teletubbies.

In all of this, sexual conduct is entirely absent, and, given
the character, is nearly unthinkable. How could this case, then, be
about anything other than sexual orientation entirely independent
of sexual conduct? And if that's true, then how is Falwell's
objection to homosexuality not simply prejudice against people who
do no more than identify themselves publicly as homosexual, without
taking anything else about that person into consideration? Does
Falwell believe, could Falwell believe that Tinky-Winky is a sinner
without having had sex? And if he's not a sinner, why is he a bad
role model for children?

That leads to the far more important reason this story is worth
consideration. Falwell is not alone in spending an awful lot of his
free time worrying about who is and who is not homosexual. Since he
cannot look at sexual conduct to "prove" his case, he has to look
for other evidence. But that search for evidence, the very need to
search for evidence, should be troubling, and not just for lesbians
and gay men.

When the desire to root out homosexuality becomes so relentless
that even whimsical TV characters are under suspicion and
investigation, how can heterosexuals escape the frenzy? The stigma
about homosexuality has long been the chief problem in closed
environments like the military, where heterosexual women in
particular have been suspected of being lesbian. This places on
them a burden of "proving" their heterosexuality. But how does a
heterosexual prove heterosexuality? That question continues to
plague the American military.

But Falwell helps us understand that this isn't just a problem
in the military. Against a prejudice this dogmatic and about a
factor that is so deeply personal and subjective, every
heterosexual is vulnerable. On the day the Tinky-Winky story broke,
the popular television series, "Dawson's Creek" aired an episode in
which a high school boy is suspected of being gay -- for reading a
poem he wrote that could be interpreted to mean that. Or it could
have had the meaning he thought it had when he wrote it, which was
not at all about secret homosexual desire. Similarly, shows like
"The Simpsons," "Seinfeld," "Friends" and many others have
explored, in comedic ways, how heterosexuals react when suspected
of being gay. In Falwell's world, homosexuality is something
everybody has to worry about.

This is one of the ways prejudice about homosexuality is
different from prejudice about race or gender. Few white people are
suspected of being black or Asian, and very few who do not
intentionally want to do so are mistaken for a member of the
opposite sex. Yet anyone can be suspected of being homosexual.
Anyone.

And once suspected, the entire array of discriminatory behaviors
-- from discomfort in the workplace to firing, from rude comments
to physical violence -- are available. Lesbians and gay men know
this from long experience. I'm sure many other lesbians and gay men
are having the same mixed feelings I am seeing how the prejudice
can run out of control. Heterosexuals shouldn't have to prove to
anyone their sexual orientation in order to escape prejudice. But
neither should homosexuals, or television characters or anyone.

Tinky-Winky is probably going to be fine, as will the children
who watch him or her or it. But as long as the Falwells of the
world continue to obsess about sexual orientation, Tinky-Winky's
plight illustrates how our basic humanity is under attack as
morality itself is being reduced to cartoon size.

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